


The Questions Tina Asks

by olivemartini



Series: Miscalleneous Newt/Tina [4]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, brief non-graphic child abuse, romacne, tw for mention of scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 20:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8682649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She certainly asks him an awful lot of questions. To his surprise, Newt was answering.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who's commented on my first three stories! Even if I didn't reply or took a while to get to it, I read them right away and they always make my day. Please keep reading!  
> (Also, I forgot if the American wizarding government was called the ministry or not, so I just kept it as ministry.)

She asks an awful lot of questions. 

Not that Newt minds, of course, he loves to talk, especially when Tina is following him around in his suitcase wondering about the specefics of this creature and that one.  But there are other times, quieter moments where they are sharing a pot of tea in the kitchen and the darkness has settled down on the city like it's own kind of spell, that she becomes more curious and he becomes less cautious, both of them opening up the secrets they've help tight to their chest.  He thinks it should worry him, as she's gathering up tidbits about school and his travels and Leta, but for some reason it doesn't.

* * *

"Why was Dumbledore so fond of you?"

The last time he'd been asked this question, he'd been in an interrogation room and sentenced to death.  This time he's still being interrogated, but it's a very different kind, where the coercions are coming in the form of smiles instead of threats, and there is only the warmth of his tea in his hand instead of the harsh cold of handcuffs.  Tina is sitting across from him, coffee in hand, staring down at the letter that had been delivered early this morning.  They had both come to recognize the looping, curly script of Albus Dumbledore over the past few days, who had been keeping up a constant correspondence in order to learn all he could about Credence and Grindewald, and of course, Newt and his new American friends.

"Haven't the foggiest."  That was along the same lines of what he had said last time, but it wasn't true, and they both seemed to know it. 

"Surely there was something.  Were you particularly good in his class?"

"I never showed up."

"A family friend?"

"I never made a very good impression on my father's friends, and I doubt Dumbledore is the kind of man to care about family ties."  In fact, he wasn't, he knew he wasn't.  Any man that did wouldn't have treated Leta so kindly, even if he couldn't protect her when it really mattered. 

Tina hummed, raising an eyebrow and reading through the letter again.  She had met him, once, when he came barging into the ministry yelling about some injustice or another, and had made quite the intimidating figure.  She had thought him a hero then, and now that she had heard Newt's story about how he kept him from getting his wand snapped in two, she was certain of it.

"He said that I was important."  The words fell onto the table between them, and Newt decided to pile more on, because once he started he could never stop.  "Said that I had a good heart, and that was the most important thing.  He said that sometimes when people with great talents and grand ideas go off to change something, they often do so for the worst, but when a man with a good heart goes out into the world, he often achieves greatness on accident."

He had been talking to the table the whole time.  And sometime during this, she had taken ahold of his hand, her fingers curling around his.  "He was certainly right about that, wasn't he?"  She grinned, wickedly, in that way he was just getting accustomed to.  His smile was soft in return.  "The great Newt Scamander."

* * *

"And how'd you get this one?"

It was the most improper of moments.

Newt could barely stand himself, really. he knew that he ought to correct this before he loses the ability to call himself a gentleman, but Tina seemed not to care in the slightest.  He had been putting on a new shirt because one of his creatures had ruined the old one when Tina barged in, laughter on her lips and a story already bursting out into the air between him.  The story had been cut off into silence when she saw him standing there, skin, scars, and all.

From there she had taken a few soft steps into the room, one hand trailing over his shoulder blade, and then they had just stood there, Tina looking at Newt and Newt looking at the ground.  Even after everything, Newt hadn't considered how ugly they must look, and even though he wasn't very concerned over matters like that, he couldn't help but wonder what Tina thought.  But then she was reaching out and tracing a hand over them, and whispered about how brave he must be, and it got a little better.

From there, they had moved to sit on the bed, her asking about each scar and him explaining the story behind it, telling some tale about a creature or a nasty accident.  It wasn't until she got to the one on his side, the really nasty one that looked like it didn't heal right, that he realized how horrible this situation really was.  The two of them, both single and unsupervised, him imposing on Tina and Tina touching him like she hadn't a care in the world for how wrong this all was, looking at the ugliest parts of him.

"That,"  He paused, moving his arm to stare down at it, at the bit of flesh that served as an ugly reminder of a moment best forgotten.  Newt had moved past it long ago- he had to, about some things, or the bad things would pile up inside of him and he would never be okay again.  "That was from when I showed up at home after getting expelled."

Her hand stilled, fingertips tracing along his ribs, and he wanted to move away, wanted to cover everything back up, but he couldn't force himself to.  It's been so long since he's had any human contact that didn't come in the form of being tossed out onto the street or a slap across the face that he didn't have the will to do what was right.  "What happened?"

"My dad was a bit angry."  Newt could remember everything about it.  He'd shown up at his front door and the wind was biting into his cheek, he was only thinking about getting out of the cold and wasn't worried about the storm waiting for him inside the door.  When he did make it in there, there was another kind of cold to worry about, the silence hitting him like sleet stinging his cheeks, his mother staring at the ground and his father clutching a bottle of fire whiskey so tight his knuckles turned white.  They had asked what happened, and he couldn't tell the truth because there was Leta to think about, and any punishment he was about to face was nothing compared to what Leta would get if she took the blame.  So he only mumbled something about creatures and an accident, and then there was glass shards falling around him and cutting into his skin, tiny pin pricks of pain.  His father was crossing the room and grabbing him by the arm, throwing him to the ground, scared and angry and ashamed of what his son had turned into, and then there was pain, pain, pain.  "It was the only time he ever hurt me."

Which wasn't true, exactly, but the kind of pain he had felt from the hand of his father before then had never been physical.  "That's horrible."  Tina breathed the words more than said them, and when she looked at him, there was no pity or judgement, only anger on his behalf.  Newt had never had someone be angry for him before, only at him.  "You didn't deserve that."

"It was one day."  He broke away from her and shrugged on a shirt, somehow not surprised when her hands started doing up the buttons.  "One night.  I forgave him a long time ago, that's what you do when you love someone."  He had, truthfully.  The problem with caring about someone, really caring, is that you learn enough to understand why they do anything at all, even if it hurts you.  "He was a good father.  A good man."

"Well."  He knew enough about her now to know that she had more to say, but was cutting it off for his sake.  "You're a better one."

* * *

"Did you and Leta..."  She trailed off, started again, stumbled.  It was strange to see her struggling for words.  Newt found it as a nice changed, considering that he was always the one who tripped over his own tongue.  "I mean to say, were you ever..."

He knew what she was trying to say.  Newt had never been able to do that before, read between the lines with people, but with Tina it was different.  "Leta and I were friends.  Good friends."  He closed his eyes and sighed, trying to block out all the thoughts and memories that were coming at him in a wave, but it was no good.  "Maybe we could have been, once, but..."  The memory of the expulsion hung heavy in the air.  He had told her about it, once, when Tina had used that as an example of when he gets too caught up in his creatures.  It was the only time he had found himself truly angry at the injustice of it all, that something he hadn't even done had caused a woman like Tina to look down on him, even for a moment.

"You loved her, didn't you."  It wasn't a question, though Newt could have took it as one.  Instead, it was heavy realization and a hint of wonder. 

"You learn to love anyone, after a while.  Maybe she wouldn't have been my first choice of friends, had I had a choice, but the problem was I didn't.  Neither of us were very popular at Hogwarts, it was only natural that we stuck together."  It had taken him a while to come to terms with the idea that maybe she didn't care for him as much as he cared for her.  It had been always him following her, protecting her, caring for her, and she never returned the favor, just acted like it was expected.  He never had anything to base it on, before now, but he's beginning to realize that she was never very good for him.  "Doesn't everyone love their best friends?"

Tina smiled.  "I suppose we do."

* * *

 "Do you really think I'm pretty?"  The question was thrown into the silence so abruptly that it made Newt choke on his tea.  "Or was that just Queenie trying to make me feel better?"

The question was all Queenie's fault, of course.  All Newt had been doing was sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling notes into his journal, when Queenie had burst into the room and demanded he looked up.  and there was Tina, looking flustered and beautiful, wearing a new dress that was much different than anything he had ever seen her in.  It was more Queenie's style than hers, and he could tell she was uncomfortable from the way she kept pulling at the fabric, but she was beautiful all the same.

(Not that she wasn't always beautiful, of course.  She didn't need a new dress for Newt to see that.)

And then Queenie was asking if Newt thought that Tina looked pretty, and Tina was protesting, and Newt turned red but Queenie could still hear the _Merlin's beard, yes, absolutely stunning_ ricocheting through his head.  Apparently not everything he thinks can be trusted to be kept private, because Queenie was confirming that yes, Newt thought Tina was very pretty indeed, which proves she should wear the damn dress.  Tina didn't believe her.

If this had been a few weeks ago, Newt would have been tempted to keep quiet or change the subject or disappear off in search of some animal or other.  But now he had gotten to know her better, had grown to care for Tina an almost ridiculous amount, and he knew when things were bothering her.  Newt had had his fair share of being overshadowed by older siblings, and Tina was no different, though people looked at the two sisters in a very different way.  He had heard the Goldstein sisters discussed before when people thought he wasn't listening- about Tina and her beautiful, gorgeous, firecracker of a sister that everyone wants to invite over for tea.  No one seemed to notice Tina, and merlin forbid Newt let her think that he was making the same mistake.

"You're very pretty."  He trips over the words, mutilates them with his mumbling, but she smiled in a way that made him think that she had understood.  "The dress looked very nice on you."

"Are you sure?  I'm not used to things that..."  She trailed off, and though Newt normally had a good idea of what she wanted to say, he was at a complete loss for this one.  Fancy?  Sparkly?  Tight?  He had no idea that she had worried over things like this.  He had always seen Tina being beautiful as a fact, he never paused to worry over whether or not she saw it too. 

"You looked beautiful."  Then, because he was already making a fool of himself and decided to do the thing properly, added, "You always look beautiful, Tina."

* * *

 She does ask a lot of questions.

But, Newt figures, that's alright.  Not many people take the time to ask about Newt Scamander. 

The ones that do must be answered.


End file.
